Embrace Program

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The Community Development Authority (CDA) plays a key role in providing foster care and ongoing follow-up for abandoned children in the emirate of Dubai. Believing in the importance of integrating children in the community and the positive role alternative and foster families play in the life of these children, CDA provides the 'Embrace' programme.

CDA encourages Emirati families to enroll in the programme to embrace a child with a caring and loving family as one of their own. It also ensure the availability of alternative families for children who are not fostered, offering a stable environment through female staff members who act as alternative mothers and aunts in a domestic environment similar to a normal family. In all cases, CDA is keen to follow-up on children in foster care.

• Provide children a proper upbringing in a healthy and consistent family environment

• Give children an equal opportunity to enjoy a normal life akin to those of their peers, by integrating them into loving families

• Satisfy the emotional needs of children, protecting them against the negative impact of family deprivation

• Give families the opportunity to provide a healthy environment to these children

When is a child considered abandoned?

According to Federal Law NO. 1 of 2012 on the care for abandoned children, an abandoned child is one found inside the country and who has no known parents. They have no natural family and are thus deprived of the warmth and care of the family.

What are the Follow-up procedures?

Fostered children are monitored periodically through field visits and phone calls which will help ensure the child’s happiness, wellbeing and adaptation to the new family, environment, and overcome other challenges faced by both the child and the family. This includes several related aspects, such as social, psychological, educational, health issues, etc.